Sexual Grooming: A Degeneration of Humanity

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The Rochdale grooming case is despicable, but racialising the crime is not the answer

The news that nine men have been found guilty of child sex abuse in Rochdale has created widespread revulsion. The disclosure in Liverpool Crown Court that the men plied their victims with drink and drugs so they could ‘pass them around’ and use them for sex was vile. One of the girls ‘groomed’ was as young as 13.

The case involved Asian perpetrators – and white victims. The far-right British National Party (BNP) is gloating that Nick Griffin, its leader, is now ‘vindicated’ on his past comments about ‘Muslim paedophile gangs’. Meanwhile, the head of the Rochdale-based Ramadhan Foundation, Mohammed Shafiq, has accused Pakistani community leaders of ‘burying their heads in the sand’ on the issue of street grooming. However (and confusingly for the outside observer) the police insist the grooming was not ‘racially motivated’.

Let us be clear: sex with underage minors is a crime. A crime is a crime, whether it is committed by a white, black or Asian person. It remains a crime if done by a Muslim or Christian, a Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist. To every right-thinking member of society, street grooming of under-age vulnerable girls is despicable. There is no justification for it whatsoever, nor should shame from any one sector of a community be used as a cloak to allow this sort of behaviour to continue.

We must expose abuse and make sure the authorities react. But pointing fingers to certain communities without comprehensive concrete research could be a distraction. Scapegoating may even deflect the society from the main issue (sexual abuse) and send us into an over-focus on only one small part of an overall problem – leading to further social division. ‘Racialising’ crime over claims about Muslim men grooming white girls could hide legitimate worries about a system that fails victims of abuse. An entire community should not be blamed for the crimes of its individuals; in 2009, eight white men were found guilty in Scotland of a catalogue of charges relating to child abuse. We must address the issue firmly and objectively. Community and civil society groups, youth centres, religious institutions along with relevant statutory agencies, including the police, children’s services and the third sector must come on board to tackle this in a holistic way.

‘At the moment, our nationwide figures on on-street grooming are still patchy and incomplete’, according to the authors of Comment is Free (CiF) in the Guardian on 8 May 2012. They believe that white offenders make up the majority of lone street groomers; but when it comes to group on-street groomers Asian youth of Pakistani origin are disproportionately high. ‘Nonetheless, it is crucial to remember that these cases do not paint a full picture of this crime…We need a better, more efficient system of data collection and collation. What’s more, these data need to be comparable and consistent across the country and across different agencies involved’, they suggest.

Expressions like ‘conspiracy of silence’, ‘political correctness’ and ‘fear of appearing racist’ are not helpful. Some communities may have a disproportionate presence in certain crimes, but that does not necessarily give the full picture surrounding those crimes. Nor should this allow politicians and media to vilify those communities; the result could be handing over ammunitions to hate groups like the BNP and the English Defence League (EDL), who in their very black-and-white discourse blame Muslims for many awful things in our country.

Islam is the religion of some of the criminals recently convicted. However, even extra-marital sex is totally unacceptable in our faith. A story at the time of Islam’s Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is highly relevant to understanding Islam’s position on the recent grooming saga:

A man came to the Prophet and asked his permission to have sex (outside marriage) with other women.

The Prophet asked: “Would you like it if other men commit such acts with your mother, sister, wife or daughter?”

The man said: “No”

The Prophet then said: “Well, then why do you want to commit such vile acts which you hate for your own womenfolk?”

The Prophet then prayed for the protection of this man’s soul from such evil.

These men convicted in Rochdale may have been nominally Muslim, but they were clearly not practising the true essence of their faith. Many so-called ‘Muslim criminals’ (as identified by the media) are in fact people who might drink, take drugs or engage in other practices we consider ‘haram’ (forbidden). Individuals who commit abuse are abusers, full stop.

It is vital all of us – including those in the community (any community) where group-level abuse has taken place – take the matter seriously. Community members must wake up to why this is happening in their midst. And they must find ways to eradicate it, through better awareness (education), religious sermons, improved neighbourhood watch, youth work, parenting courses and so on. At the same time, it is also vital that wider society and the state itself employ all in their armoury to prevent problems arising and bring offenders to justice. We need strong deterrent in the form of punishment in order to deter future sex offenders.

Children, whether young or teenage, are our treasure and trust. Our life centres around our children: they are our future. We need to safeguard them from social ills and protect them from harm. We must not hide from our duty as parents, and as a society, to our youngest and most vulnerable people.

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5 Comments

Ken

Once their term in prison ends send them back from where they came from along with their families, friends and those who helping them so within this groups whoever is criminals and supported the criminals by hiding their true nature they all are guilty because catching few rats and let others walk away would not work because paedophile are recruited as old one had gone to prison.

The gang wants their members so supply of the fresh victims to their elites paedophile client continue to take place. Look at tourist industries around them and their family and friends who are visiting them from abroad so what kinds of people do they mix with are also all suspects. Study their involvement so this is the start and soon many thousands would be caught.

The worse places are their takeway places, businesses and their second homes so the B&B business. How about secret hide out to control victims where they keeps them for days this is where all run way and missing victims are found. They creates poverty in victims family life and than pay free food and drug so once victims is controlled, they join and no one knows even their family so this victims than are used to bring other fresh victims so their business run without anyone guess.

An Extremely well written and balanced article. I am the founder of ‘roshni’ a charity based in Scotland. roshni deals primarily with raising the awareness of issues surrounding abuse within minority ethnic communities.

There can unfortunately be no singular strategy which will answer the questions raised by such tragic cases. Living in Scotland, there is not the density of ethnic minorities living within silos. In England, areas such as parts of Bradford, Manchester, Leeds, London (the list goes on) have large swathes where the inhabitants are primarily from one ethnicity and culture, thus giving the look and feel of living not in UK but from the countries of their parents or grandparents origin. whilst this can give a feel of comfort and closeness to the inhabitants, it also can lead to an acceptance of ‘whatever we do right or wrong will be dealt by the community’

The question of race has been raised strongly with this case. let us take a look at perhaps one of the reasons that only white vulnerable girls were targeted. Generally speaking, muslim girls between the ages of 10 and 16 years old living with the environment as i have described above, are not allowed to go out in the evenings and use carry outs, or video shops as hang-outs. thus lessening the risk of these young people being targeted. This is not a criticism of the young people or parents that allow them to go out in the summer evenings till perhaps 10pm or so, but a sad reflection on the dangers that are ever present.

There must be also a number of safeguards that can be put into place, again there is no single safeguard that will do the job, however we have to keep on until we can reduce the risks.

Examples of safeguards, keeping in mind the above case, could be

a) if parents do allow their children to go out in the evening, parents could perhaps on occasion identify the key areas their children meet, the parents could introduce themselves to the people who run these businesses, so that the is a link made there, the parents could ask for the details of the owners, ask for their contact details and let them know, if their kids are under age, leave their details in the case of any issue arising whilst the kids are out and about.

b) examples of government/ council safeguards. why can we not force (and i use the word with deliberation) businesses which have kids hanging around to display appropriate materials highlighting dangers of accepting any inappropriate behaviour/ getting free food or drink. these can all be designed by young people to make the materials reflective of the target market they are aimed at. Have video cameras installed, and before we hear, ‘we cannot afford them’ ‘it is not practical’ when it comes to safety our our young people, there can be no argument. Any business that does not show co-operation should have their licenses revoked.

c) communities. use places of worship, in the muslim religion, i doubt if in Uk there is any free space in any Mosque at Friday prayers. Imams should use that opportunity to openly discuss such issues of child safety and highlight concerns

d) vulnerable young people. this is an issue for local authorities and communities to address, members of the public should feel empowered to be involved i safeguarding not only their own children , but all children within the communities regardless of race or religion. there can number of ways to ensure participation

Lastly, although it is a big ask, i wonder if any of the families of the perpetrators would have the courage to stand out and openly show their revulsion for the acts that have been carried out.

i, on behalf of roshni intend to work to ensure that, in Scotland at least we take pro-active steps to ensure this type of predatory paedophile group can never be allowed to operate.

Due to the fact I broke this story in 2008 and forced the issue with the authorities, because people like yourself did nothing, I am the one REAL person who has the knowledge and factual evidence to say what the motive behind these rapes and enslavement of young female children is, and without any doubt or hesitation I will say categorically that the issue is RACE!

dr. Bari, a well written article, if you accept “Community members must wake up to why this is happening in their midst.” why not clever juggler of words like you and dr. Katy Sian “wake up” and tell us why is this happening in the Pakistani/ Muslim community? i await your replies !

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